


The Lay of the Fearsome Vale

by kurtoons



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Elves, Fantasy, Gen, Hobbits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 04:31:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16055594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurtoons/pseuds/kurtoons
Summary: Another Holmesian fragment; this time pondering what if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote for Gary Gygax."Please don't speak to me about dragons. At least not after breakfast."





	The Lay of the Fearsome Vale

**Author's Note:**

> A bit ago I posted a previous writing exercise in which I re-cast the opening of the Sherlock Holmes Story _The Valley of Fear_ as an Old School science fiction story. This time around, I did something similar, putting _Valley of Fear_ through the transmogrifier and changing it into something more Tolkienish. After all, since Martin Freeman has played both Watson and Bilbo Baggins, I thought it appropriate enough.

"Were you going to finish that?" I asked. 

Without even looking up from the wretched parchment he seemed engrossed in, Silverlock Holmes picked up his spoon and gave my hand a sharp rap, before it was even close to the untouched sticky bun on his plate. "You've already had your second breakfast, Watson," said he.

I rubbed my smarting knuckles. Really. I like to think I'm as forbearing and tolerant as the next halfling, particularly after breakfast, but sometimes Holmes was just the limit. "I just don't like seeing good food go to waste."

"Unless, of course, the waist is yours," he replied with an unnecessarily sarcastic glance at my green waistcoat and that dry, condescending tone elves mistake for a sense of humor.

I began gathering up the breakfast things as Holmes continued perusing the letter. He passed his long fingers over it and uttered something in elvish which caused the letters on the parchment to glow briefly, but which seemed to grant Holmes no illumination. "But this was written by Porlock, I'm certain of it," he muttered more to himself than to anyone else in the room. "The orkish umlauts over the E-runes show that if nothing else..."

"Who's Porlock? Old school chum?" I ventured.

Holmes set down the parchment with annoyance. "Porlock is nothing. He's careful not to use his True Name, of course, but the man himself is insignificant. A minor underling of a more sinister master, like the megalocentipedes which scavenge carrion from the dragon's den."

"Please don't speak to me about dragons. At least not after breakfast." I tried to collect his plate with the sticky roll, but he pulled it out of my reach.

"It is in conjunction with his dark master that Porlock achieves his importance. You have heard me speak of the Thaumaturge?"

"You mean that dark sorcerer with the host of malevolent minions?"

"The same. Magister Moriarity."

"Oh." I forgot for a moment the sticky roll. "Didn't you chuck him off a waterfall?"

\-- From the Reminiscences of Jingo H. Watson, Esq.


End file.
